Dramatis Personae
by DiligenceIncarnate
Summary: Fushimi Chihiro finds a gun in her locker. What follows is a reimagining of the story of Persona 3, and an attempt to develop on the psychological concepts introduced in the game while making it a little more true-to-life.
1. Chekhov's Gun

The first time that Fushimi Chihiro saw the sinister glint of the gun she had found in her locker, she suddenly became aware that there was much more to her life than the simple, quaint veneer that she had always assumed; until that moment, when she was staring at the cold, weighty-looking handgun, she had never considered the unknown undercurrent that passed through Iwatodai City. And until she saw the trigger - it looked as though it would move so easily, at the most gentle of presses - she never detected that there was something sinister going on behind the scenes at Gekkoukan High School. Her mind reeled not with questions - for there was only one, which was, _'Who did this?'_ - but with hundreds of potential answers. Fuse-chan? Hisami-chan? Hidetoshi-san? The boy who was watching her in the library last week? _Who did this?_

She had stared at the gun in her locker for long enough that her mind had been vacated of all other thoughts, and it wasn't until she heard voices that she snapped back to functional reality; a group of girls burst into the foyer from the entrance, laughing and giggling as they approached their own lockers, and Chihiro thrust her lunchbox into the locker, in front of the gun, and slammed the door shut. She quadruple-checked that the locker door was tightly securely closed, that not even a strong tug would open it, that no-one could peek inside and catch sight of the weapon, and she turned and ran to her next class, gripping her books tightly to her chest in an unconscious reflex of defense. The panic in her mind lingered behind her as she ran.

The first class of the morning was Composition, and, as could be expected, Chihiro couldn't concentrate. She could hear the teacher talking, and understood that the cadenced near-constant drone was Toriumi-sensei outlining concepts that would be vital to the class, but Chihiro was unable to focus well enough to actually pick out any words. Instead, she sat with her elbows atop her desk, cradling her head atop her hands as she stared down at the floor in front of her desk, her mind beleagured by the disturbing circumstances she had found herself in.

'_There's a gun in my locker.' _Though she had seen the thing lying cradled in a nest of papers and tucked away snug behind her lunchbox, the harrowing realisation that there was a lethal weapon just sitting there a few corridors away inside _her_ locker kept the panic fresh in her mind. New questions began to surface as she remained gazing into nothingess: who had the motive to do something like this? How did they get inside her locker? What message were they trying to get across? Why her? Again and again - who did this?

From beyond the foggy drone of Toriumi-sensei in the background, Chihiro began to contemplate new possibilities: perhaps this was someone's idea of a game, that they would put a gun in her locker and observe how much they unhinged her. With this contemplation, Chihiro immediately looked up and scanned the classroom.

One member of the classroom quickly turned their attention away from her in a motion too swift to look anything _but_ suspicious. It was the boy sitting two rows ahead and one column to the left, the one who she had caught staring at her several times in the library within the past two weeks; she didn't know his name, and didn't exactly find his attention flattering; in fact, it scared her to know that she was under observation during the times she thought she was on her own. It felt intrusive... and now that a weapon had appeared inside her locker, she considered it suspicious as well. But she couldn't just go up to him and ask about it - if he was innocent, he could easily go and tell someone about the gun. If he was guilty, he wouldn't admit to it. She had to watch him, just as he watched her -- it would be difficult, but necessary.

For the remainder of Composition, she kept her sight keenly on the boy with the messy light-brown hair, and several times she caught him beginning to turn around to look at her. She took in more and more details about him the more she looked at him, intentionally memorising as many details about him - his not-quite-flat collar and overlapping tie, the band-aid on the right side of his temple - so she could sift through the circumstantial suggestive evidence towards his guilt in the form of minor motions, such as his tendency to hold a pencil a little too aggressively, his compulsion to batter his feet against the floor as though impatient, and the eagerness he expressed when attempting to turn around and look in Chihiro's direction. Only once more during that hour did their eyes meet, and it resulted in the boy bashfully turning back to his work and not attempting to look at her for the rest of lesson. "_Definitely suspicious behaviour_", Chihiro thought. "_I should see if he tries anything when we get out."_

It did not feel as though the lesson had dragged on when the bell finally rang, simply because Chihiro had been too wrapped up in her situation to pay any attention to the class or the clock. She stood up, and, though she intended to carefully observe her target as he departed, she lost sight of the suspicious boy with the band-aid as the students poured out into the fast-flowing corridors. She sighed - without focusing on this potential lead, she would again have to suffer more questions and more questioning on part of her own mind. Nonetheless, she headed straight for her Mathematics class - it would be best not to arouse too much suspicion by being late, just in case. In fact, now that she thought about it... she would have to pass by the lockers.

She turned out of the classroom and entered the hallway which, at one end, opened out into the foyer where the lockers stood - including her own. As she approached, her mind quickly forgot about the suspicious boy, and instead focused on a thousand different horrible scenarios involving the gun in the locker and what might happen. She pictured walking out into the foyer and seeing the police standing there, just waiting in a line by the door, ready to take her away in front of the entire school. Or else, she imagined them opening her locker door the second she stepped out into the hall, and shouting for someone to seize her. Pre-emptively, the burn of shame scalded her face as she considered being tackled and carried off to jail for... for what? For a crime she did not commit? Or would they think she was going to go on a rampage, and... no, no, she wouldn't do that. They must see that no crime had been committed... or was that not the case? Possession of the gun was a crime in itself, and though she herself didn't put the gun there in the first place, she certainly _knew_ it was there, and did nothing to get rid of it.

And why didn't she? Someone could easily be trying to frame her, Chihiro mused. If they put a gun in her locker, then told the principal that they had seen Chihiro put it in there herself, she would be expelled on the spot! She scolded herself for being so stupid - she should have got rid of it the second she saw it. But she didn't; she stood staring at it, entranced by it, and ultimately just left it lying there. She even put her lunchbox into the locker, which would provide ample evidence that she had seen the gun that morning and chosen to do nothing about it, including not reporting it to the principal, which would have relieved her of much of the blame. She had to do something, and she would have to do it soon - before her antagonist did.

She reached the end of the hallway, and immediately departed from the main flow of the student body, arcing out towards the lockers. She made her way towards her own, with her heart beating painfully in her chest, and, after making triple-sure that no-one would see her attempt to slide the gun into her lunchbox, she twisted in the combination to her locker with her free hand, and eased the door open very slowly - before letting out a short, breathless squeak and throwing it open completely, causing the door to clatter loudly against the adjacent locker.

The gun was gone.

The noise of the hallway drained away. The only sound Chihiro became aware of was the _THUD-THUD, THUD-THUD_ of her heart pounding in her chest. She dropped her books. She began rifling through the locker desperately searching: behind the lunchbox, under stacks of old essays, in the dark corners... but it was gone. She stood staring into the space where the revolver had been later that day, her hands gripping the locker-door so hard that the metal threatened to cut into her fingers, and her feet covered in a messy pile of the schoolbooks she had dropped.

"Fushimi," came a voice from over her shoulder, "have you lost something?"


	2. Presidential Heart

Chihiro reflexively pulled the door to the locker shut and span around, to come face-to-face with the Student Council President herself, Kirijo Mitsuru. Chihiro caught her foot on the side of one of the books she had dropped and stumbled back onto her locker, which elicited a squeal of sharp pain as she banged her shoulder against the steel. Mitsuru merely raised an eyebrow in response.

"Um, Mitsuru-s-senpai! Hello! I-I'm.. I've n-not..." Chihiro stuttered. "I w-was just going... my m-maths book..."

Mitsuru remained motionless, standing there in front of Chihiro with her arms folded over her chest, and a grim, no-nonsense expression of cold, hard stone half-obscured by her wavy red hair. She broke her stillness with one simple movement - turning her eyes towards the locker behind Chihiro.

"Is there something in that locker you don't want me to see, Fushimi?"

It was at that moment that even the sound of Chihiro's heart seemed to disappear into nothingness, and she was instead left with a frozen wave of cold panic as she recognised how dire the situation was. Mitsuru was the President of the Student Council of which Chihiro herself was a part, and she was also Chihiro's senior - if anyone had to approach her about the gun being found in her locker, it would likely be her. Not for the first time did Chihiro become aware of her senpai's uncanny ability to know more than she actually admits to; something in Chihiro's quiet, slowing heart began to whisper about her.

_She knows. She knows what was in there. She's seen it. Or someone told her already. You're too late._

"Fushimi?" came the President's severe voice.

"Um, yes! I mean, no! No! There's nothing in there!" Chihiro stammered in response. She span around and grabbed the dial to her locker. "I can show you!"

In her panic, she fumbled with the dial input for a suspiciously long time, and, as she heard Mitsuru's exasperated sigh from behind her, she forgot her combination completely.

"It's fine, I trust you," Mitsuru said. "I'm not here to interrogate you unannounced, anyway. I just wanted to ask if you were going to attend Student Council today."

_A trap. She knows about the gun. They'll bring it out when I'm there. I'll break down, and I'll look guilty._

"U-um, well... I was j-just going h-home after... after the-"

"If I could make the suggestion, I would appreciate it if you would come along, and I was going to ask if you could wait behind afterwards." Something about Mitsuru's tone of voice suggested that this was less of a suggestion and more a discreet demand that had to be met.

_She needs more time with you, to interrogate you. To find out more about the gun. She knows._

Nonetheless, Chihiro either did not register what her heart was telling her... or ignored it completely.

"O-Of course! I'll be there, s-senpai!" she said.

"Excellent," Mitsuru replied. "I appreciate your commitment."

The Student Council President turned around, delicately stepped over a Science book lying on the floor, and strode off down the hallway away from Chihiro without looking back.

After a few moments, the ambience of the students traipsing to their classes began to flow back into the forefront of Chihiro's senses. Her heart rate slowed - though she remained panicked. _The gun has gone_, she thought, _and Mitsuru-senpai must know something about it_.

Chihiro bent down and scooped up her fallen books into her arms, and joined the throng of students again, heading towards her Mathematics classroom in a daze.

Once again, Chihiro couldn't focus on her schoolwork, but this time, the tutor did not afford her any time to brood - she was intent on making sure the class were alert by demanding answers from any student who looked as though they weren't paying attention - and, unfortunately, Chihiro happened to possess a particularly vacant expression that morning.

"Fushimi-chan, wake up, please!" the teacher bellowed. "And, when you're able, the answer, if you will!"

"U-um... The... I-It's..." came Chihiro's stumbling response as she snapped out of her contemplative-vegetative state. She looked at the blackboard, and saw a mass of numbers arranged in equations she couldn't make sense of. She looked down at her desk, and saw an empty workbook.

"Never mind, Fushimi-Chan. I'll wait until you're somewhat more alert, shall I?"

Chihiro nodded in response, before cringing at herself answering a rhetorical question. The rest of the class laughed - Chihiro kept her head down from the remainder of the class, glimpsing up only once to discover that a number of people were passing amused looks in her direction.

The rest of the morning's classes dragged on - and every hour that Chihiro had to wait for the bell to ring felt far longer. When the lunch-bell rang, Chihiro's mind was immediately gripped by the thought of her locker, and of the gun which had disappeared from it only an hour after she had found it there in the morning. She had to go pick up her lunch from the lockers, and made her way there.

Along the way, new fears began to wriggle their way into the forefront of Chihiro's thoughts. _What if the gun's back in the locker again? What if the police already found it? What if they're waiting to see if I confess? What if the person who put it there, put it there by mistake, and now they think I know about it, and that I'll tell someone, and they're going to kill me? What if-_

Her worries churned round and round in her mind, and in her stomach, until she turned into the main hall - to find Mitsuru-senpai talking to a police officer at the front entrance to the school, just a few paces away from the lockers. Then, her worries dashed away from her mind, as though they had chosen to become amused spectators to a scene of such callous reality that could not compare to the fevered schadenfreude conjured in Chihiro's imagination.

It took a great deal of mental coercion to force her own body to move, but move it eventually did as Chihiro leapt in between two rows of lockers to listen in to the conversation between Mitsuru-senpai and the police officer.

The first voice belonged to the policeman. "If there's anything else you need, don't hesitate to let me know, Kirijo-chan."

"Of course, Kurosawa-sama," replied Mitsuru in her severe, yet almost playful tone. "That won't be too long from now; I intend to bring Fushimi in soon."

The implications of the sentence filled Chihiro with an overwhelming urge to run. Her mind, despite being wracked with worry and anguish, was analysing the situation with a cold, ferocious logic and a dedication to avoid the consequences of this unfair scenario. No justice would be administered if she was taken in. No-one would believe her if she told the truth. No fairness would be dealt. And so, her conscious mind came to the same conclusion that her body's impulses did - she would run. Run from the hallway, from the school, from her home, and from her life. She placed her textbooks atop the lockers, sneaked down the row, and waited for Mitsuru and the policeman to leave the area.


End file.
